


the five stages of grief (we now mourn the living)

by bruisedbutlovely



Series: bittersweet words // oneshots [11]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Blood, Cara | CaptainPuffy is Clay | Dream's Parent, Clay | Dream Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Five Stages of Grief, GeorgeNotFound Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentioned Callahan, Mentioned Sam | Awesamdude, Mentioned Wilbur Soot, Mild Blood, Not A Fix-It, Parent Cara | CaptainPuffy, Reflection, Sad, Sad Ending, Sapnap Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Self-Reflection, Swearing, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Traumatized Tommyinnit (Video Blogging RPF), not a dream apologist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruisedbutlovely/pseuds/bruisedbutlovely
Summary: Four people went into Pandora's vault and came back out.One person went into Pandora's vault and never came back out.(four people visit dream in prison. the story is over.)
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy & Clay | Dream, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: bittersweet words // oneshots [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160981
Comments: 12
Kudos: 212





	the five stages of grief (we now mourn the living)

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day!! have dream angst :)
> 
> (holy shit am i proud of this one)
> 
> hope all of you are well and today is the day to take care of yourself!!

_ i. denial: the action of declaring something to be untrue _

  
  


Captain Puffy didn’t recognize her son. 

The last time she did, he was going off with his friends and creating a server all for himself. 

She kissed his forehead and told him to be safe.

He laughed and said he would.

But as Puffy stepped into the black stone cell, the lava slowly crawling back down behind her, she looked down at her little duckling and she couldn’t recognize who he had become.

When did he start wearing a mask?

When did he start hiding from her?

She wished she never gave him that obsidian. She wished she knew what he was planning. She wished she wrote more letters to him. She wished she joined the server earlier. She wished she never joined the server. She wished she never let him off on his own.

She wished that she didn’t teach him that attachments could be used against people. 

Sitting down before her son, Puffy tried to smile. 

And if he did smile back, she wouldn’t know. 

“Hi, duckling,” Puffy felt like crying.“Look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Long ago, that phrase would have been used when Dream tried to kill monsters when he was too young or when Dream managed to spill the flour everywhere or when he brought home a parrot that got into absolutely everything. 

But now, that phrase had lost its nostalgia, its soft scolding, its warmth.

The prison cell was cold. 

“You don’t have to answer,” Puffy’s voice was quiet as if she was scared that if she talked any louder, something would break. What that something was, she didn’t know but there were enough broken things in the world. “You don’t have to talk at all.”

There was only silence.

“Do you remember that day long ago-” The mother smiled despite the harsh blackstone, the warm glow of the lava, the repetitive click of the clock that could drive anyone insane. “- when you killed your first monster? You couldn’t have been more than seven and you could barely hold a sword but you were so determined, so stubborn.”

It was that determination, stubbornness that would force him into this seven by five cell with only the written words as his outlet.

“So, I gave you a stone sword and trapped a zombie in a small shack to make sure it didn’t hurt you and to protect it from the sun,” Puffy tilted her head, as if she could still feel the sun against her skin. “You were scared but you wanted to do it. I let the zombie free and it started to burn.”   
  
Puffy laughed. “Your stance was awful and your swings missed half the time but it died. I think it died more to the sun than you but you turned to me and you smiled so wide. You told me that night that you would kill every monster.”

With sad eyes, the mother looked at her son for a final time. 

“I wish we killed the monster in your mind.”

  
  
  


_ ii. anger: a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility _

Tommy screamed until his throat was raw. 

His voice, once used to rally the Fifth Battalion and call war cries and cry as L’Manburg was destroyed once, twice, three times, was now used against the man that started it all. 

They said Wilbur started the revolution. Dream forced it. 

They said Tommy started the wars. Dream attacked first.

They said L’Manburg was cursed. Dream spoke those words and L’Manburg was doomed to fall.

Fate was nothing if not cruel.

Tommy’s voice echoed off the black stone walls, echoed off the chest, echoed off the clock that refused to stop ticking. He screamed and screamed and screamed. 

The sixteen year old punched the wall, letting the blood run freely down his knuckles. He punched Dream across the face, satisfaction crawling across his skin as Dream’s mask cracked more and bruises started to form. He threw Dream’s clock in the lava, finally silencing the ticking of the neverending march of time. 

And yet, time continued on. 

Tommy’s voice was weak, harsh, and sounded like his brother’s after Wilbur picked up the self-destroying habit of smoking. His throat was raw and it hurt, it hurt so much but yet, words still echoed in the prison cell.

“Why?” Was all Tommy could ask. “Why did you do it?”

And Dream found that he couldn’t answer.

“We just wanted to be happy,” Tommy was quiet and he was never quiet. “We weren’t doing anything wrong. We weren’t hurting you, we weren’t griefing you, we just wanted a peaceful country. L’Manburg was supposed to be peaceful.”   


Tommy scoffed. “But you couldn’t handle that. You greedy green bitch, you needed to have everything. My country, my friends, my family, my discs. You only ever fucking cared about my discs, you dick.”

“War after war, we fought. And you just couldn’t stand losing.” 

All that could be heard was the soft bubble of lava. 

“You’re the reason why I can’t stand it here,” Tommy finally admitted. “You took my discs. You took my country. You took my brother. You took my friends. You took my stuff. You took everything from me and you can’t even look me in the fucking eye.”

Dream looked up and Tommy was crying. 

“You know,” The younger choked out. “In exile, I thought you were my friend.”

Dream was a liar. He lied and lied and lied to get his way because that is what people did when power was on the line.

Everything was about power. 

“But you weren’t,” Tommy looked away because he feared that he would lose it again if he stared that bastard in the face. “You were only using me and I should have realized that a long time ago. You never cared about me and you never will because you’re a dickhead.”

He wiped away his tears with the back of his hand and yelled for Sam to let him through. The lava began to drain and Tommy stepped on the platform, headed away from Dream, away from the manipulator, away from the puppet master. 

Away from the villain. 

“I hope my discs were worth it.”

  
  
  


_ iii. bargaining: negotiating the terms and conditions of a transaction _

Sapnap tried to understand the story.

He talked for hours on end, letting his words flow like a river and yet, burn like the lava that surrounded the cell, that prevented Dream’s escape. Everything in that prison was to make sure that Dream never saw the sun again and yet, Sapnap wanted him to feel the warmth that the sun gave again.

But all he had was the warmth from the lava. 

Sapnap tried, he tried so hard to understand, to see what drove his best friend from his place in the sky to the cold ocean below. He tried to figure out what changed his best friend from the man that smiled and laughed and protected the server to the monster that manipulated and killed and destroyed everything because if he couldn’t have it, no one could. 

Sapnap wondered when he lost his best friend.

Was it the disc war when Sapnap joined Tommy? Was it the war when L’Manburg tried to be free? Was it the election when everything changed? Was it the Pogtopia-Manburg war when everything went up in flames? Was it the exile when Sapnap left Dream alone with Tommy? Was it Doomsday when the apocalypse came early?

Was it the final disc war, one life remaining?

Sapnap just wanted to understand. He wanted to help, he wanted to figure out what went on in Dream’s head and what happened to cause him to turn into something that even a god would fear. 

Dream took Mars. 

Dream said he had no idea where the fish was. 

Sapnap missed Dream. And he tried to smile when he entered the cell.

“Hey, Dream,” He sat down next to his friend, looking over at the mask that used to make the younger smile. Now, he could only see that smile through the nether portal, holding an axe. “How are you, man?”

  
  
Dream was writing. It was like he didn’t even notice that Sapnap came into the cell and Sapnap wondered when he became a background character in the story Dream made up in his head. 

“I just don’t understand,” Sapnap leaned his head against the stone. “Please, Dream, I just want to understand.”

“I can help you,” The younger was begging now, pleading, simply trying to be heard when the silence was too loud. “You don’t have to stay in here. You can come home. Dream, please.”

Silence like the quiet after a storm. 

“Please say you’re sorry.”

Silence. Only silence. 

“Please say you regret what you did. Please say that you would do it differently if given the chance. Please say you didn’t want to break our friendship. Please say you didn’t use my pets against me. Please say that you didn’t mean it.”

He didn’t even want an apology anymore. 

He just wanted for Dream to regret ever hurting this server. 

“Help me understand why you did it,” Sapnap couldn’t breathe, why couldn’t he breathe? “Help me understand why you tore us apart and ruined everything we had.”

“Tell me that you regret it.”

Tick, tock. 

  
  
  


_ iv. depression: feelings of severe despondency and dejection  _

George didn’t say a word. 

His goggles were dark for the lava was behind him and his eyes, used to be bright, used to be shining, were dull like so many others. He stared at Dream like he hated him, like he despised him, like if they had a chance to do everything over again, he wouldn’t ever give Dream a second glance. 

And yet, he was crying. 

George sat down on the opposite side of Dream, of the man that dragged him into wars, that wanted only chaos, that made him king when all he wanted to do was sleep. 

They all joked that George slept through everything. Maybe there was a reason he did.

George always followed Dream, always thought that his friend would want the best for both of them. And when they started a server together with Callahan and Sapnap and everyone they cared for, everything seemed perfect.

It’s almost comical how fast everything went wrong. 

But no one was laughing.

George stared across the cell at his friend who only stared back at him. The lifeless eyes of the porcelain mask were unsettling, more death than life and George couldn’t remember the last time Dream didn’t wear his mask. He used to take off his mask, long, long ago and he would smile brightly, saying it was hard to breathe in that thing. 

Once, when the night was warm, George asked why Dream wore a mask.

And all he said was that it was easier to go through the world when no one knew how you truly felt.

George didn’t want to reminisce, didn’t want to fall into the hole of the past with no way out and dirt under his fingertips as he tried to crawl out but he can’t. He doesn’t want to fall, to drown, to try and scream out for help but no one can hear him and no one can help. 

The past, if nothing, was best left untouched. And if the past came up again, it was simply best to lie to oneself and pretend that it was never there. 

George might have used to care about Dream. He might have used to be friends with him. He even might have loved him like a brother.

That was all in the past. And George would lie to himself for as long as he could. 

George’s eyes fell to the clock, to the golden clock that Sam said was simply there to prevent the idea of time passing slowly or too fast. To keep track of time, Sam summarized. And George couldn’t imagine wanting to keep track of it. 

Time passed whether someone wanted it to or not. It was only linear, no going forward or back. 

The clock kept on ticking. And the gold only reminded George of the bloody crown that Dream pushed into his hands one day, smiling with that red liquid dripping from his mouth. Dream led him to the throne, telling him to take a seat and George did because he trusted his friend, he trusted him. 

But George never wanted to be king. 

  
  


_ v. acceptance: the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered  _

Dream knew the story was over. 

When the show was finished, when the symphony was done, when the curtains finally closed and everything had come to its end, all that was left was the broken pieces.

Of people, of homes, of history. 

It was all broken. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like that, right?

Stories were supposed to be happy. Stories were supposed to be content. Stories were supposed to be joyful.

They were supposed to end on a high note with thunderous applause. 

They were supposed to end with friends and family.

They were supposed to end with the main character finally free.

So why was Dream trapped in a cell that was five by seven, why was he blocked off by a wall of lava, why was he alone, why was he so cold?

Why, why, why. 

Dream was supposed to be the hero. He was supposed to be free. He was supposed to be happy. 

Why wasn’t he happy?

  
  
He did everything he was supposed to. He did everything to build a world around him, filled with people. He did everything to be warm.

Dream was so cold. 

He would rot away in this cell. He would spend the rest of his days watching the lava. He would listen to only the sounds of his clock. He would write in the journals with ink that never lasted long. He would scrape small lines into the blackstone to try and keep track of the days that passed by all too slowly. 

He would try to remember what the sun felt like. He would try to remember how the community house looked. He would try to remember where the prime path led. He would try to remember what the church of prime worshiped. He would try to remember what L’Manburg looked like. He would try to remember what Pogtopia looked like. He would try to remember what Snowchester looked like. He would try to remember what the Badlands looked like. He would try to remember what the server looked like. 

He would try to remember what George’s laugh sounded like. He would try to remember how Sapnap duelled. He would try to remember what Tommy’s voice was like. He would try to remember how Puffy said that she loved him.

Dream would die in the cell. 

Heroes weren’t supposed to die. 

He was cold. 

Maybe he was always the villain. 

Dream tried to swim in lava. 


End file.
